cultornot.com
How leaders bind followers, and what makes leaving difficult.
Cult or not? The answer is rarely yes or no. ACE measures the walls a leader builds, one layer of control at a time.
Authority, Cult & Exit
Five metaphorical walls around a follower, from the outermost to the most extreme. The dashed line is the way out, and every wall it crosses makes leaving harder.
Explore
Look up a leader
Explore how leaders build allegiance, how followers become bound to a system, and what makes leaving difficult.
We created the ACE score to help people understand fanatic leadership and the patterns in historical examples. Type in a leader’s name and our Model Engine builds a profile from the historical record. It shows how tightly that leader held their followers, why those followers found it so hard to leave, and which pattern of ending its scores fit.
Key figures
- Cases
- 100
- Across five categories
- 57
- Half of these cases score lower
- Highest ACE Score
- 94
- Pol Pot
- 23
- Bubble Score of 7 or more
The board
The Fanatical Leadership Board
Leaders ranked by the , which combines authority, cult devotion and the cost of leaving, or by any single score. A high rank describes the grip on followers, not a moral verdict, and inclusion does not classify anyone as a cult.
How it works
Methodology
Every profile is scored with the same guide. Four questions produce the scores, and three of them combine into the : , and , each out of 100.
- 01
Scored 0 to 10
How sealed is the bubble around followers?
- 02
Scored 0 to 10
How much do followers feel they owe the leader?
- 03
Scored 0 to 10
How far does everything rest on one person?
- 04
Scored −10 to +10
When the system turns violent, where does the harm go?
is the mean of
- AuthorityWho decides truth and Right to live
- CultDevotion Debt, Leader Dependence and Fear of the end
- ExitCut off from family and Freedom to leave